Apple demands widow get court order to access dead husband’s password

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ONTARIO, Canada — Peggy Bush had a lot to deal with after her husband died. The 72-year-old didn’t think the most complicated thing would be getting a password.

“I could get pensions, I could get benefits, I could get all kinds of things. But from Apple, I couldn’t even get a silly little password? It just seemed nonsense,” she told CBC.

The couple had an iPad and an Apple computer. Peggy didn’t know the Apple ID password.

“It just never crossed my mind,” she said.

When her card game stopped working, she needed that password. Peggy’s daughter Donna called Apple, thinking it would be a fairly simple thing to take care of. After many phone calls and giving Apple the serial numbers, her father’s will and a notarized death certificate, she says she finally got an answer.

“You need a court order. You need to go to court to do that. I said that was ridiculous. All I want to do is download a card game for my mother on the iPad. I don’t want to have to go to court in order to do that,” Donna said.

After CBC contacted Apple, the company called Donna saying there was a misunderstanding and offered to help without a court order.

“It’s definitely going to become a bigger issue,” said real estate lawyer Daniel Nelson. “More and more people are transferring their lives online and it’s going to become a greater and greater proportion of one’s estate.”